Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone is one of the most dominant track and field athletes of all time. But her exploits on court haven’t always translated to happiness off of it. This was most evident in 2020 when she was struggling a lot because of numerous reasons. One of them was a heartbreak caused by her ex-boyfriend from high school, who had said that he didn’t see them ever getting back together again.

The other reason was related to her career. It was her second loss to Dalilah Muhammad at the 2019 IAAF World Championships, where she finished in second place. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone had run her then-personal best of 52.23 seconds but lost out to Dalilah’s 52.16, which became the world record back then. While she was dealing with all of this, COVID-19 came into the foray, shutting down everything, and leaving Sydney to deal with her problems herself.

This was even more harmful to her mental health, and she was left on the verge of a breakdown because of pent-up emotions. While these emotions later came out, they did so in the worst moment possible for Sydney. In her book Far Beyond Gold, the hurdler talked about how COVID-19 shut down all training facilities in the world. This was until early May when the protocols started loosening up and UCLA started opening its training center.

Thus, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone resumed her training there. One day, her current coach, Joanna Hayes, introduced her to Bob Kersee. Bob had quite the reputation, as he had previously coached track legends Florence Griffith Joyner and Allyson Felix. Joanna, who was also coached by Bob during her track career, requested him to come in as Sydney’s hurdle consultant twice a week. He agreed and soon started training the hurdler.

His instructions would improve Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s game as he gave her practical solutions to her struggles. For example, the hurdler had always struggled during the first hurdle of the race. To combat that, Bob set her blocks further behind, which seemingly solved the problem.

However, Sydney always had this intense desire to win. This is why the fear of losing to Dalilah Muhammad again was eating her up from inside. One day, she broke down on the track, catching Bob Kersee’s attention. He went up to her and asked her what was wrong. After some hesitation, she said, “For the first time in my track career, I feel like I’m going backward. I’ve always prided myself on progressing every year, but for some reason I really feel like I’m moving in the wrong direction.”

According to Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Bob responded in an absurd manner. “He turned around and walked away. After retrieving something from his backpack, he brought it over to me,” she said. Apparently, he handed her an emotion wheel. It had emotions like happiness, sadness, and anger written on it. “I have a hard time expressing my emotions too,” he said. “So I want you to have this. Hopefully, it will help you figure out how to identify what you’re feeling.”

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone would later recall this incident as a very embarrassing moment for her, as she had just met Bob Kersee. “I was embarrassed. Here I was bawling my eyes out to the most decorated coach I’d ever met, and he barely even knew me,” she wrote in her book. But she would later realise how this conversation had impacted her in a great way.

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone was impacted heavily by her conversation with Bob Kersee

After Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone received the emotion wheel from Bob Kersee, she went back home at night and looked at it closely. She looked at all the emotions and thought about why she was feeling it at that time. “I started with angry. What was I angry about? I was angry about my current situation and how I felt helpless in it. The next column branched out to more intricate words.”

She added, “From the eight listed, I most related to frustrated. I was frustrated that things were not going my way, and it didn’t seem to be improving. Finally, we got to the heart of it when I reached the last column. The word was resentful. This word, though true in the moment, was not something I was proud of.” Sydney realised that it was resentment that she felt the most at that moment. She projected this feeling upon her closest people, which included her parents, her coach, and others. This discovery helped Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone a lot.

Finally, she could see what she was going through. Thus, at that moment of time, she decided that she wanted to be coached by Bob Kersee. This was because it seemed like his advice might really help her mental health. The next day, she told her agent to contact Bob and set up a meeting, where he agreed to coach her. Since then, Bob Kersee has been Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s coach and has overseen some of her greatest achievements in the track, which include her four Olympic medals. Thus, that conversation with Bob was very impactful to the hurdler’s career, as it made her what she is today, one of the best to ever step on the track.